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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 2 Motivations When a program runs into a runtime error, the program terminates abnormally. How can you handle the runtime error so that the program can continue to run or terminate gracefully? This is the subject we will introduce in this chapter.

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 3 Objectives F To get an overview of exceptions and exception handling (§13.2). F To explore the advantages of using exception handling (§13.3). F To distinguish exception types: Error (fatal) vs. Exception (nonfatal), and checked vs. unchecked (§13.4). F To declare exceptions in a method header (§13.5.1). F To throw exceptions in a method (§13.5.2). F To write a try-catch block to handle exceptions (§13.5.3). F To explain how an exception is propagated (§13.5.3). F To use the finally clause in a try-catch block (§13.6). F To use exceptions only for unexpected errors (§13.7). F To rethrow exceptions in a catch block (§13.8). F To create chained exceptions (§13.9). F To define custom exception classes (§13.10).

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 4 Exception-Handling Overview QuotientRun QuotientWithIfRun QuotientWithExceptionRun Show runtime error Fix it using an if statement What if the runtime error occurs in a called method?

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 5 Exception Advantages QuotientWithMethodRun Now you see the advantages of using exception handling. It enables a method to throw an exception to its caller. Without this capability, a method must handle the exception or terminate the program.

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 8 System Errors System errors are thrown by JVM and represented in the Error class. The Error class describes internal system errors. Such errors rarely occur. If one does, there is little you can do beyond notifying the user and trying to terminate the program gracefully.

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 11 Checked Exceptions vs. Unchecked Exceptions RuntimeException, Error and their subclasses are known as unchecked exceptions. All other exceptions are known as checked exceptions, meaning that the compiler forces the programmer to check and deal with the exceptions.

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 12 Unchecked Exceptions In most cases, unchecked exceptions reflect programming logic errors that are not recoverable. For example, a NullPointerException is thrown if you access an object through a reference variable before an object is assigned to it; an IndexOutOfBoundsException is thrown if you access an element in an array outside the bounds of the array. These are the logic errors that should be corrected in the program. Unchecked exceptions can occur anywhere in the program. To avoid cumbersome overuse of try-catch blocks, Java does not mandate you to write code to catch unchecked exceptions.

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 16 Throwing Exceptions When the program detects an error, the program can create an instance of an appropriate exception type and throw it. This is known as throwing an exception. Here is an example, throw new TheException(); TheException ex = new TheException(); throw ex;

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 20 Catch or Declare Checked Exceptions Java forces you to deal with checked exceptions. If a method declares a checked exception (i.e., an exception other than Error or RuntimeException), you must invoke it in a try-catch block or declare to throw the exception in the calling method. For example, suppose that method p1 invokes method p2 and p2 may throw a checked exception (e.g., IOException), you have to write the code as shown in (a) or (b).

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 35 Cautions When Using Exceptions F Exception handling separates error-handling code from normal programming tasks, thus making programs easier to read and to modify. Be aware, however, that exception handling usually requires more time and resources because it requires instantiating a new exception object, rolling back the call stack, and propagating the errors to the calling methods.

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 36 When to Throw Exceptions F An exception occurs in a method. If you want the exception to be processed by its caller, you should create an exception object and throw it. If you can handle the exception in the method where it occurs, there is no need to throw it.

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 37 When to Use Exceptions When should you use the try-catch block in the code? You should use it to deal with unexpected error conditions. Do not use it to deal with simple, expected situations. For example, the following code try { System.out.println(refVar.toString()); } catch (NullPointerException ex) { System.out.println("refVar is null"); }

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 40 Custom Exception Class Example Run InvalidRadiusException In Listing 13.8, the setRadius method throws an exception if the radius is negative. Suppose you wish to pass the radius to the handler, you have to create a custom exception class. CircleWithRadiusException TestCircleWithRadiusException

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 41 Assertions An assertion is a Java statement that enables you to assert an assumption about your program. An assertion contains a Boolean expression that should be true during program execution. Assertions can be used to assure program correctness and avoid logic errors. Companion Website

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 42 Declaring Assertions An assertion is declared using the new Java keyword assert in JDK 1.4 as follows: assert assertion; or assert assertion : detailMessage; where assertion is a Boolean expression and detailMessage is a primitive-type or an Object value. Companion Website

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 43 Executing Assertions When an assertion statement is executed, Java evaluates the assertion. If it is false, an AssertionError will be thrown. The AssertionError class has a no-arg constructor and seven overloaded single-argument constructors of type int, long, float, double, boolean, char, and Object. For the first assert statement with no detail message, the no-arg constructor of AssertionError is used. For the second assert statement with a detail message, an appropriate AssertionError constructor is used to match the data type of the message. Since AssertionError is a subclass of Error, when an assertion becomes false, the program displays a message on the console and exits. Companion Website

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 45 Compiling Programs with Assertions Since assert is a new Java keyword introduced in JDK 1.4, you have to compile the program using a JDK 1.4 compiler. Furthermore, you need to include the switch –source 1.4 in the compiler command as follows: javac –source 1.4 AssertionDemo.java NOTE: If you use JDK 1.5, there is no need to use the –source 1.4 option in the command. Companion Website

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 46 Running Programs with Assertions By default, the assertions are disabled at runtime. To enable it, use the switch –enableassertions, or –ea for short, as follows: java –ea AssertionDemo Assertions can be selectively enabled or disabled at class level or package level. The disable switch is – disableassertions or –da for short. For example, the following command enables assertions in package package1 and disables assertions in class Class1. java –ea:package1 –da:Class1 AssertionDemo Companion Website

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 47 Using Exception Handling or Assertions Assertion should not be used to replace exception handling. Exception handling deals with unusual circumstances during program execution. Assertions are to assure the correctness of the program. Exception handling addresses robustness and assertion addresses correctness. Like exception handling, assertions are not used for normal tests, but for internal consistency and validity checks. Assertions are checked at runtime and can be turned on or off at startup time. Companion Website

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 48 Using Exception Handling or Assertions, cont. Do not use assertions for argument checking in public methods. Valid arguments that may be passed to a public method are considered to be part of the method’s contract. The contract must always be obeyed whether assertions are enabled or disabled. For example, the following code should be rewritten using exception handling as shown in Lines 28-35 in Circle.java in Listing 13.8. public void setRadius(double newRadius) { assert newRadius >= 0; radius = newRadius; } Companion Website

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Liang, Introduction to Java Programming, Eighth Edition, (c) 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 0132130807 49 Using Exception Handling or Assertions, cont. Use assertions to reaffirm assumptions. This gives you more confidence to assure correctness of the program. A common use of assertions is to replace assumptions with assertions in the code. Companion Website